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The ‘Smith Family’ lives in a 4-plex condo in San Onofre II, pictured. A family of 2 where both parties work outside the home Monday thru Friday. How is it possible that they get a $313 electric bill one month, and $202 the next month?

The Resident Energy Conservation Program was created to make base housing residents more responsible for energy conservation and management, but it’s left military families reeling with high bills, miswired homes, and what seems like no real oversight of the program.

The Marine Corps Gazette published a piece recently with how the Energy Conservation Program broke faith with military families.

“Overall, the military base housing RECP violates the Commandant’s planning guidance in its victimization of Marine Corps families. This is unethical and against the Commandant’s guidance on several counts,” says author 1stSgt Norman D. Fistler III.

Camp Pendleton utilizes Yes Energy for electric billing and management. The idea behind the billing is to create an average of like-homes, where the average is the ‘grace zone’ and those falling into the zone wouldn’t get a bill. Those who fall below the zone using less electricity get money back, and conversely, those above the zone using more electricity, pay.

Sounds good hypothetically.

Energy companies installed electric meters at each of the homes on base with privatized housing managing the program.

The Conservation Program would prove to be a huge problem for the base because homes were not built and wired to be independently billed for electricity. In fact, many of the homes were wired to street lamps, common areas, and other units in the neighborhood, only to be discovered after several-hundred-dollar bills were sent to military families.

One of the biggest complaints base residents have is that the program doesn’t take into account the number of people living inside a home. A family of 5 is going to use a lot more electricity than a family of 2, thus punishing the family of 5 with a significantly higher electric bill.

Oftentimes there are also empty homes in a neighborhood. The energy company says they don’t include those homes in the figures, but is anyone verifying this information? Where are the checks and balances?

But again the problem is in the execution of this plan.

Take for example a military family living in San Onofre II, a neighborhood of condos. Let’s call them the Smith family, to protect their privacy.

The Smiths have lived in the four-plex unit since April, 2015.

They’ve more or less been in the grace zone since that time. Until they weren’t.

September, 2016 bill was $313.

October, 2016 bill was $202.

And they’ve done nothing different or out of the ordinary.

In fact in 2015 and early 2016, Mrs. Smith didn’t work and stayed home where she used more electricity, but they were always in the grace zone.

Now both members of the Smith Family work away from the home from 8am to 5pm, Monday thru Thursday. How is it possible that they now owe several hundred dollars in electricity?

And how does a CONDO get that kind of electric bill for their home in the first place, when there are no air-conditioners installed?

In fact, there are hundreds if not thousands of families just like the Smith Family. This is happening across all military bases, from young NCO to senior officer housing.

Today the Smith family received a notice saying the family will be evicted in 3 days if they didn’t pay their electric bill. They’ve been begging people for answers, reaching out to Yes Energy and base housing for help.

Yes Energy responded and told the family to first pay, then they’ll conduct an investigation.

How are our military families expected to fork out several hundred dollars to a company on the chance that they’ll be reimbursed?

This isn’t right and it’s not fair. Our military families deserve better.

If you’ve been a family affected by this situation, I highly encourage you to call your local NCIS who are conducting investigations on your behalf and to submit a claim to the Inspector General.

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About the Author: Kristine Schellhaas founded USMC Life in 2009 as a way to help inspire, connect and educate Marine Corps families and has dedicated thousands of volunteer hours helping military families through five wartime deployments.

All rights reserved. The content of this webpage may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written consent of Bright Mountain Media, Inc. which may be contacted at info@brightmountainmedia.com, ticker BMTM.

63 Comments

My family was stationed in 29 Palms just as this system was in its trial run. We moved just before it took affect. Several of my friends were saying how horrific this was. One friend had moved home with her mother for a month after their baby was born and her husband was in the field for 2 of those weeks, yet their bill was over $300! How does that make ANY sense? Plus, when families sign to move into base housing, they are doing so with the understanding that BAH will cover their “rent” and they don’t have to worry about utilities since they would be included. Our military families live so much paycheck to paycheck that many have to get food stamps or WIC just to survive, but sure, let’s just rob them blind with the idea of conserving energy. Many of the housing units are not even worth renting out for how much they take from BAH. Many are infested with roaches, black widows, RATS in the walls, and have mold growing. This is NOT what these families deserve.

There were 3 dead cockroaches in the unit during our walkthrough. DISGUSTING! The housing rep just casually picked them up and tossed them in the trash and said they were leftovers from when they sprayed for bugs. We have been plagued with roaches for a year and a half now, nothing will get rid of them! I’m embarrassed to have guests over for fear they’ll see a dead roach on the floor somewhere. The electrical wiring in our unit is so dangerous and faulty. Turning off lights in one room turns things off in other rooms. They want to raise our rent to $843 this coming February. What a joke!

Finally someone shed some light on this pressing issue. My family has been having such a hard time as well with the yes energy and housing. We are a family of 2 as well as the smith family. My husband works all day while I run errands and when I’m home everything is off and unplugged. Yet, we are being charged more and more every month. We JUST moved here in June and have hardly even been home. My husband trains a lot, so I go see family and leave the home for a week to 5 weeks at a time. We also leave the home to visit family. For some reason, the entire time we’ve been living here in San Onofre, we have been in HIGH buffer aka red zone. Since june, the day we stepped foot in this home. Mind you, we weren’t home much in June too. When my husband went to ITX I left to be with family for 5 or 7 weeks. Yet for some reason, despite no one being home, we were STILL over the buffer. WAY over the red zone. Our meter was “spiking”the whole time we were gone.we also were gone in October when our bill was spiking again. Our neighbor was home that while time. So we’re thinking were paying for their bill somehow.. either way something isn’t fair. Housing and yes energy just tells me “the meters are to the right home (allegedly) and the bill is yours t pay”. Why isn’t anyone listening to our story of how we’re hardly home and a home of 2?why aren’t they truly investigating anything for any of the residents or us ?.. it truly isn’t fair. I’m so happy someone is exposing the fraud… thank you. I truly hope housing finds a different company or fixes their wrongs with the residents and military families.

We are in the same boat. Our bill on July 2013 was $1200 – $700 or which we had to pay. I couldn’t understand how we got a bill so high with both my husband and I working 60+ hour work weeks. Additionally, we were gone on weekends for kid activities and we had no AC unit. A very long story short, years of battling housing, yes energy, and Andrew Killion no would answer our questions/requests, they tried to evict us, and refused to meet with us when we acquired a lawyer. We were forced to pay over $1500 for electricity we don’t use. Then miraculously our bill drops almost $600 a month once payment is received. We still owe anywhere from $20-140 each month.

It also does not help that Lincoln Military Housing puts families in homes they do not rate – example a family of three in a 4 bedroom home. This also effects our energy bills,

Irresponsible writing that certainly can’t be characterized as journalism; perhaps a poorly done opinion piece at best. Devoid of journalistic integrity and a profound disservice to the military families this site purports to advocate for. The author makes unsubstantiated, fantastic claims without the pretense of having objectively investigated or conducted rudimentary research into RECP. It’s no wonder that even the few people that were once devotees of this site and voice have now turned away from it.

Well written article that aims to evoke a bit of awareness on a real problem affecting our servicemembers are their families.
This piece is not ‘fake news’. I understand there’s a lot of that out there so it’s easy to incite some sort of baseless attack on this article, but you’re off base fake Frank. This problem is not isolated and it affects some of our young families. I know where my priorities are fake Frank. I can’t say the same for you.

Frank,
I am unsure of what you mean by this article being irresponsible. If everyone is standing by their comments and elaborating on them is it still irresponsible? Because it negatively affects a company or highlights flaws in a system, that does not make it irresponsible. I feel that it would be considered irresponsible if the author was anonymously hinting at an imaginary issue, but she isn’t.
It may be an opinion piece, but doesn’t she have the right to state her opinion on her website? If the opinion is agreed upon by many people and provides a voice for those who have been ignored by this utility issue, how is it a disservice?
If you consider the claim is fantastic, how many people do you think are living in that fantasy?

I have also lived through a similar “fantastic” issue. When I called Yes Energy, the only advice I was given was to unplug my coffee maker.

The flaw in this system is simple: You could be using less energy than homes of your size according to PG&E estimates, but if your like-type group is using even less out of fear of an extra bill, you will end up in the higher tier and still have to pay. The only way to come out fine is to shut off your power.

I have been monitoring our energy bills for over 2 years and have always commented on how the number of units that the bill says have been averaged is 141. It’s never changed. Not during PCS season, when we have watched the neighborhood practically clear out. While my family of five watches our electric bill sky rocket.

See that you only post comments that agree with the “fiction” that was promulgated in this exceptionally poor piece, and you won’t post anything critical of the lack of journalistic effort that it evidences. Pretty much what was expected. I will lodge my concerns directly with the owner of the site.

Please share the positive aspects of RECP so we can be more informed. We don’t censor comments. We only delete comments that are spam. Clearly, you can check other pieces of ours and verify that information.

You obviously work for Lincoln or don’t care about what h efamily members say. I am no longer there but lived in San o 3, I had a waiver for my energy due to me needing an ac unit. But yet the bills were around 300 or more a month. I would almost guarantee none of theee houses are wired correct because this has never happened in the military until now.
I would sure love for congress to get involved and they need to. People. We’d to contact congress and the family members need write to the pentagon as well as the base IG. This was complete garbage. And so is Lincoln military. They don’t care about anyone but their money and themselves.

We are currently dealing with a $600 bill! They said we had to pay within 3 days or they threatened to evict us. We don’t have that kind of money laying around especially before the holidays. We have lived here just over 3 years and never had the issue until it just popped up in our last couple bills. I have tried contacting companies and The energy company says its housing office who deals with the maintance of the electricity. The housing office says its the energy company. In the end we will be stuck paying it and there is nothing it seems we can do. I hope that this gets fixed and the attention is given to it. Its effecting hundreds of other military families as well. We hardly make enough as it is and then they want us to fork over hundreds more on a bill that cannot possibly be that high.

Gateway Villiage in point Loma San Diego. navy Housing. We have had a bill EVERY month for 3 years. 3 bathroom 2 story. no one is home during the day I have NEVER used my air cond or heater. We are scared to use to many lights. And only wash once a week. We were getting bills in the 250 to 400 range. I have two three stories in my row,they get money back… They run ac all year non stop. NO BILL. I have called and called and been blown off. I asked where my meter was and no one seems to know. I have asked for a assessment and they walked around scratched their heads and mumbled they dont know. We have SOLAR panels and still the bills.We left for two weeks and turned off all electric at the panel. My bill was higher that month. I finally snapped and said i would get a lawyer. My bill dropped instantly to 100 a month…But we still should not have any.We have been threatened by housing,they called my Husbands command when i refused to pay a 800 bill. Forcing me to pay it.But they have no answers. Its a rip off and not one person in power will come and figure out why. Im not the only one. I would say at least 70 percent here in housing are over charged and no one cares.

We just moved into Deluz Housing in August and received our first bill last month. I was shocked because I thought we would not be billed. However, we were, so we paid it. The thing is that the bill was sent out on 11/15/16, and not received until 11/19/16 with a due date of 12/6/16. The bill said that if we did not pay by the 6th of December there would be a $10 late fee applied. But how if you sent it out like not even three full weeks before the due date?

We left Camp Pendleton housing before this started. There is no benefit to having 100% of you BAH taken for rent and still be charged utilities. I can find cheaper rent out in town that will allow our BAH to cover the utilities (and did) AND be in a bigger house with lower costing utilities. Nope, no draw to stay on base anymore, utility free was enough to put up with housing drama, but not anymore.

I am a Certified Energy Manager and degreed engineer. I work in the energy field professionally. I’m also a military spouse and dealt with this issue personally a few years ago. I would encourage anyone dealing with this issue to go to the utility and talk to the person creating the energy model for the base. It is very likely that what is being considered a “like” home is not in fact similar. For instance, a 3 bedroom townhouse built in 2010 is not similar to a 3 bedroom townhouse built in 1990. End units are very different from interior units. I think most of these issues are simply due to a poor model that has not been challenged by the right people. It is unlikely that usage varies enough to create these kinds of bills. It is much more likely to be an issue with the model.

Posted in private FB group: I saw SO much of this when we lived in the San Luis Rey neighborhood at Pendleton. There were rumors going around that some street lamps and sprinkler systems were connected to peoples homes…but of course it was denied by housing (both the private and govt sides). There was no rhyme or reason why a family with 6 members would be below zone when they didn’t do much to save money and a family of 3 who either essentially lived in the dark and or were never home were charged astronomical amounts of money. It went on for years until I moved – and I am still a part of the neighborhood page…I see that it is still an issue to this day, 2.5 years later. I sure hope there is an investigation into this…it’s been obvious to the residents for YEARS that something is not right.

And if I remember correctly, there was actually a plot that SHOWED the lights/sprinklers attached to homes. I can’t remember the details but at the time I was a resident advisory board member and had communications with the Lincoln staff….I was told things that most residents were not. I can’t remember if I actually saw the plots or were just told about them. Thinking back, I think it was the gov’t side that denied it. And yes, it is so messed up.

Yeah and when I continued to question our over the top bullshit bills they sent somebody from housing to do an “energy assessment,” and recommended I unplugged lamps to save $300 a month. The whole system was a joke.

This whole program makes my blood boil. It’s criminal that people are paying $300 or more a month (when you KNOW it’s not reasonable) and being evicted. We paid the whole time we lived in San O, and then we’ve paid a handful of times in our new house and we didn’t do anything different! It’s a terrible system. The whole average thing–it’s like getting an A on an exam but with the curve you end up with a C. Just dumb. A class action suit of some sort waiting to happen.

I no longer live there – and as far as I know the right hand didn’t know what the left hand was doing. it was always a bit sketchy to me. Fortunately my family was not affected because we were EFM P. But I did have to watch my neighbors suffer through the implementation of it and all that came after.

They were in 2014 when Murphy Canyon in San Diego first started the RECP program. they even found in Canyon View (officers housing) that we were paying for street lights. we ended up moving out of state and back and since we moved back we are actually lower end of buffer. we were advised to wait to wash dishes and clothes after 6p.

btw, my daughter takes 2-3 baths a day. it also helps that we can now turn off the back porch light. i remember we couldn’t before.

Same thing here in HI. No bill for the first year and all of a sudden it has been huge jumps each month. They have come out to check our A/C and says it works fine. Which doesn’t make sense since our house is so humid we have 2 dehumidifiers running. Yet my neighbor keeps her house warmer, and her humidity level is way less…

We have ours on auto-pay with YES and have gotten notices from housing that we owe money and could face eviction. We have never once been late on a payment as the company takes money directly from my checking account anytime we owe. It is so frustrating because housing blames problems on YES and YES blames housing. We owe each month and even did when no one was home during the day 4-5 days a week.

OMG – preach! The other frustrating aspect is that BAH is supposed to cover housing AND “normal” utilities and renters insurance.
How is it right that the Jones (05) family of 4 lives right next door to the Smith family (03) of 2 in EXACTLY the same house and the government takes $3288/month from the Jones and $2877 from the Smiths. The Jones family of 4 electrical usage is always much higher than the dual working Smith family with no kids. The Jones are paying monthly for electricity and the Smiths are EARNING money each month even though the Jones are supposed to have $411 more each month to go toward their housing expenses.

It’s outrageous to be charged utility usage based on your neighbors not on a set statistical established amount normalized for your family size and location.

That’s fine. Regardless the BAH coverage – what we’re talking about here is the METHODOLOGY of the Resident Energy Conservation program. Charging people’s utilities based on a neighbor’s usage (who goes TDY and wife goes away for months) isn’t truly accurate or fair. They need to establish a standard kwh/mth usage that is set. Not some subjective, often skewed value.

Oh I totally agree with you 100%. I have thought RECP was a bad idea from go and your argument is echod

We’ve had SO many issues here in Del Mar. All with no answers. We lived here for 9 months with no bill, then our monthly usage doubled with no changes whatsoever. It was like that for 8 months and then somehow it all went back down to “normal”. The whole thing is a scam. We get electricity from SDGE but housing tells us to call YesEnergy and SDGE says since we’re technically not customers with them they can’t provide any meter information. I could go on and on.

I’m so glad you’ve posted this article. I wouldn’t have thought to contact the IG but that’s a great idea!
Not going to say it’s ok but at least at Lejeune you’ve got comparable housing prices off base! Here, you’re basically screwed!
This just infuriates me!

I have a friend that was looking into this years ago with some inside info!
I offered my bills for as long as I had (which I always keep) not sure what she ever discovered.

Its been 5 years since we lived on base, family of 5 and i was a SAHM. Our electric usage was always over by 100 or more. Our usage was compared to families who only had 3 people and who both parents worked outside the home then a retired couple with no kids at home and who both worked outside the home.

There was literally a MONTH AND A HALF I went back to Ohio when Jordan was training. The bill was higher than it ever was, we owed money when no one was home, I unplugged everything, etc. Everything was off. It was ridiculous.

I agree 100 % with you . It’s just sad . My husband and I are never home . But when we are all that is on is the tv and if I have the day off I have to do laundry . Like you said they didn’t build this based on people who work or stay at home or even the number of people that live in the unit . They need to find answer before a huge lawsuit goes into play

I’ve always wondered about how empty homes come into play here.
They could never have an accurate count of people in a home because although we have dependent children on our lease, 2 of them are away at college.

Unfortunately we are dealing with this ourselves. They got my husbands command involved and gave us a notice as well that we need to pay our $600 for electricty. They tried to tell me that i just need to pay it and WHEN they get a chance to check our house IF we aren’t to blame then they will reimburse us. Its a joke and i know if i pay it upfront they will “find” it was our fault somehow and we wont ever see that money again. I refuse to pay until i see that it is indeed been our fault

We’ve been here for 3 years. We usually come in under.
This summer though we requested the waiver because we have neighbors that love bonfires and the smoke fills my home to the point of being forced to close the windows.
We have a diabetic daughter and insulin MUST be kept at room temperature or it is not effective.
We only used the AC when necessary. And I’ve actually removed the AC about a month ago. And now we seem to always be over.
Not a huge amount but still over.
We all are at school or work all through the week.

I understand that they run different and he is in a different state. Not the same situations but it still baffles me how different that could possibly be, We have been here over 3 years and maybe paid 2x a year always under $100. Then suddenly we out of no where get these ridiculously high bills.

What is really upsetting to me is they gave us a notice on our garage wednesday evening before Thanksgiving weekend stating we needed to pay it in 3 days. Then no one was around because of the long weekend. First thing Monday morning before i could contact them they called my husbands command. Luckily they were understanding when they talked to him and he explained our situation. However, its extremely frustrating that it got handled that way. He then called me and told me what happened. I called housing and the lady told me to go fill out the survey and where i could find it. She didn’t even bother asking what house was disputing it or who the family was that was calling. I had to ask if she needed any of that at which point she just said “oh yeah let me get your contact information.” I didn’t feel like i was getting taken serious. I filled out the survey and over a week later never heard anything back from them. Then I received another notice yesterday, saying we had 3 days to pay it all. I went back in to the office in person. They wrote down my address and phone number and said they’d call me with in 24 hours to have someone check it out for us. Its been over 24 hours and i have heard nothing.

I don’t understand how people get charged so much. I lived in Serra Mesa and stuart Mesa and always had shit on. Whether it was lights, fans, TV, washer/dryer, you name it. Hit above our limit once. They ended up sending us a $22 check once we finally moved. Have the yes energy people came out to check your meters? I’d have them do that. Because that’s ridiculous.

I have been trying for the last year or so to find more information than just my sister’s electric bill on Pendleton. I explained all the issues she was having with my boss (a state representative). There are politicians that are aware of this issue. You just need to start getting the word out and calling Congressman Issa’s office. Make it an issue for them.

This sounds exactly like my situation. My husband and I both work full-time outside of the home and run our children to Sports in the evenings. Often times we are not home until around 8 o’clock in the evening and off and on and on the weekends. All of a sudden last winter we started receiving electric bills which totaled almost $800. We have lived in this home for about four and a half years and never had a bill prior to this. We have no idea why the spike happened and neither does maintenace, but we had to pay it.

This is why we had to move out. We were getting 500+ in electricity bills and we hardly ever used electricity. We have been out in town for 2 months now and our total we have paid for electricity and gas has been $27 for gas and $111 in electricity total for the two months. Our last electric bill on base was $518. I was turning the breaker off everyday for 4 hours, washed laundry twice a week and hardly ever used the dishwasher. It was bad.

This has been happening to most if not all residents. My husband and I work and went to school 5-6 days a week 6am-6pm. We had new fans installed, new appliances, our dryer is gas, and we never used the dishwasher. Yet we were never in the grace zone. Our first two months in mock billing showed us totally fine but once we moved over to regular billing, then our usage went up and we pay every time. I have an outside light connected physically to our house that stays on all night. All the wiring is supposedly fine after an inspection but my neighbor attached to me pays double what I do and is home even less than my family. These families cannot afford these bills. This is the biggest scam and it’s horrible that this company is preying on military families. I hope action is taken immediately. Thank god we don’t pay for water after how many times the sprinklers have broken and flooded the yard and surrounding areas and it takes up to two weeks for someone to come out and fix it.

We lived in base housing in 29 Palms. It is the first and last time I ever want to do that. We were fortunate to always be below (I have no idea how) on our energy bill. However, I just felt robbed and helpless in the whole housing scheme. There was a period of 7 days while we were there where the entire housing area was without power…we got mock bills that month but spent an entire week with no power and minimal communication on when it was coming back. My biggest frustration there was that we (the residents) were powerless-literally and figuratively. My husband is just not receiving this portion of his paycheck so I can’t withhold rent, etc. I can complain but as previously stated who is listening?! The house was functional but was more expensive than, significantly smaller than, and of much lower quality than that of an off base new construction home with a pool we had left at our previous duty station. Add to that that various ranks (officer and enlisted) are in the exact same homes…I feel everyone deserves quality housing but how can you charge one family x for the same house that another family is paying y for?! We made the choice to live on base there because of the location and short time we would be stationed there. It is not a choice we will make again. Aside from the “community” it provides, I am not sure what base housing has to offer. I can get so much more for my money off base and more importantly feel like I have control and a voice when it comes to my living situation!

Interesting that the preponderance of comments related to this “article” are merely re-posts from external sources – perhaps as a rather transparent means to show traffic to the site that would not otherwise exist, and to support a profoundly uninformed and biased piece. Thank you for unwittingly and perfectly making my point about the exceptionally poor quality of this site!

Okay Frank, whatever makes you sleep at night. Traffic? That’s your best response? The small amount of comments I left hasn’t affected our data a fraction of a percentage. Divide the amount of comments into 46,140. That was our traffic yesterday. See ya.

This company YES energy does our electricity bill here in Hawaii (Kapalina Beach homes) its old base housing and this is the issue month in and out our bills are 700+ per month. Everyone else on the island is paying less than we are.

We had the same issue at fort hood. We were being charged 200 to 300 monthly no matter what the usage. I would constantly call both the electric company and housing and neither would do anything had several eviction notices. Always just paid the bill before they evicted us because we didn’t have any other option.

Did someone force you to read this article, Frank? Or did you read it all by yourself? Did it strike a chord? Do you often get your jimmies rustled, or is this article extra rustle-y? Are you legitimately offended? Why? What change(s) in the writing would you like to see that would squelch your doubt and disdain? Could you please highlight the “fictitious” points in the article, and, for the sake of good journalism, please provide accurate information? I’m sure the author would welcome the enlightenment and perhaps even issue a formal apology for her errors, if there were any.